I adore a sandwich, which is a shame in the sandwich desert that is Berlin. No, I know. It’s getting better; so many places are making things happen, and we’ve seen a huge influx of great sandwiches over the past five years. I’m grateful for that! And yet, I can’t help but think of the incredible jambon beurre I bought on the way to the beach in Marseille last September. Or the Pan Bagnat that was so juicy, the oil spills are still visible on my bathing suit. Luckily, we can get a great baguette in this city, and once you’ve got a great baguette, you’re mere minutes away from an incredible jambon beurre.
More of an assembly of ingredients than a recipe: I like mustard on my jambon beurre; it cuts through the richness and, together with the cornichons, provides some much-needed acidity. I don’t use comté since I find it dulls the flavor of great ham. I try my best to use French butter packed with salt crystals, but any good salted butter will do. Split the baguette open and generously butter the bottom, schmear the top with dijon mustard. Arrange your ham lovingly on the buttered side, gently fold and stack each slice, allowing for small pockets of air. This makes for better texture and an easier bite. Cut the cornichons in half and place them on top of the ham. Close the baguette and wrap it in baking paper for the pool, park, or picnic or, enjoy right-this-very-second.

While I was in London last month, I was reminded just how perfect a meal of toasted sourdough, butter, and Marmite is with a cup of milky black tea. Served alongside a second slice of sourdough with cream cheese and marmalade (inspired by Paddington Bear), I couldn’t have been happier.

Continuing on the theme of bread, I have an ongoing joke with my friend Danielle: “death by a thousand soft sandwiches”. I truly can’t think of a better way to go. It’s not really a joke; we both simply love a tiny, soft sandwich. They’re definitely up there in nursery food when I’m craving comfort. My go-to is turkey & cheddar: one slice slathered in cream cheese, the other with yellow mustard. Crusts are always cut off and enjoyed as a chef’s treat during sandwich preparation. Several of them piled high on a plate, preferably served with a pickle and some crisps. I usually get funny-frisch Salt & Vinegar Kessel Chips, though I recently found Sour Cream & Dill Chips at Penny, and I’m obsessed. I’ve never been a huge fan of sour cream & onion flavour. Why would I want chips that taste like raw onion??, but as a huge dill-head, I was intrigued, and they did not disappoint.

Lastly, seeing it’s tomato season, I’d be remiss not to mention the classic tomato sandwich. The first time I ever heard of one was while reading Harriet the Spy as a 9-year-old. Putting a tomato in between thick layers of mayo, stuffed into squishy white bread, was unheard of in my Anglo-German childhood, and the idea intrigued me as an early tomato-lover. Harriet was so obsessed with this sandwich, she had it for lunch every single day. Now, as an adult (I guess I am? Though my niece and nephew still refer to me as half adult, half kid – a badge I wear proudly), I make my tomato sandwiches a little differently than Harriet’s, though no less delicious. Instead of squishy white bread, we use sourdough, fresh and untoasted. I can take or leave mayonnaise and usually enjoy it the most when homemade. I’ll never say no to Kewpie, but I do prefer my tomato sandwich with thick lashings of cream cheese. Even better: a fresh bagel, smothered in cream cheese and thick slices of salted tomatoes. When I’ve only got day-old sourdough on hand, I’ll toast it and generously drizzle the bread with olive oil.

I feel like I’m finding my footing again, work-wise. After a rocky two years that included a sabbatical (heaven) and a return to freelancing without a 100% focus on exactly what I wanted to do, I’m genuinely excited about work again. Many loops are closing, which feels both satisfying and inspiring.

In 2012, I was interning at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. I only remember the vaguest details of that time. Our offices were located in containers in the garden. There must not have been enough space in the main house, and one day, I glanced out the window and saw a massive streak of red blood in the fresh snow because, apparently, a fox had gotten one of the HKW bunnies. The gory visual stuck with me. Even though they offered me a job, I let my internship run out in early summer. It was my last internship in the art world. I’d worked at galleries and art magazines, and the art world didn’t seem like a good fit. It was too hierarchical and bureaucratic (state-managed public funds funded the project I was interning for at the HKW); everything had to be detailed down to the last cent, and it took forever to get even the smallest amendments greenlit. Fair, when using taxpayers’ money, but incredibly frustrating when you’re simply trying to make art happen. One of my last tasks was an event we hosted on Tempelhofer Feld. Dubbed “Ein Abend an der langen Tafel”, we’d invited 30 artists, curators, gallerists, and collectors to attend a dinner seated amongst a huge sculpture on Tempelhofer Feld. Five of the guests would be cooking a dish each that was personal to them, and the HKW team was tasked with supporting them in whatever way they needed. I can’t remember any of the other dishes, but one artist made Spätzle, since his family had roots in Baden-Württemberg. Knowing what I know now, cooking home-made Spätzle (which are traditionally made by scraping the fresh, loose dough into a pot of boiling water) for 30 people was deeply ambitious. But the audacity was exactly what made that evening so special; everyone came together to make the spätzle, and the deeply ingrained hierarchy that I so disliked about the art world felt flattened. It didn’t matter if the collector was scraping the dough next to the intern; everyone was pulling together to make this dinner happen. It must have been June because we had one of those magical Berlin nights where the sun doesn’t set and it’s not too hot and the colors on Tempelhofer Feld are intensely blinding.

I remember telling my mother about this afterwards, that this is what I wanted to continue doing. Not having a clear understanding yet of what this exactly was, and at 23 years old, too young to put it together. Looking back, I don’t think I could have done it at the time. I needed the experience I gained in those 14 years in between to learn and grow. It feels like I’m coming full circle, and I now get to do exactly that with that deep-seated gut feeling I had 14 years ago: bringing people together around a table, fostering conversation and intimacy, flattening any existing hierarchies, having a fucking good time, maybe drinking a little bit too much wine, and sneaking a cigarette by the end of it. Staying up a little too late but feeling exactly zero regrets about it the day after. That’s what I want.

Last year, I launched Nordic Brand Works to support Nordic food and beverage brands establishing themselves in the German market. Over the last few months, I’ve re-tooled the concept. Made it more me, made it feel more true to myself, what I’m good at, and what I actually want to be doing. With NBW today, I’m open to working with progressive F&B brands that want to ground themselves in Germany through cultural access, not advertising: dinners, creators, and spaces that already have a community behind them. An alternative for brands that can’t or don’t want to spend half a million on a launch campaign, but still want to root and build connections locally before they scale. I’m incredibly excited to see where this goes, and if it sounds like you, let’s have a chat.

It got bloody HOT last month. I don’t think you need me to tell you that. I lowkey loved it; we haven’t had a real summer since what? 2018/19? And I fully embraced life in a furnace. This past month I had a lot of the following: iced black tea with plenty of honey and lemon, toasted pumpkin seed pesto, and Greek salads en masse.

When my apartment feels like that of an Italian widow during her 30-year mourning period (I close off my east-facing rooms and cover the doors’ glass windows with cloth to keep the heat out), I make a large pot of black tea, allow that to cool slightly, and sweeten it with several spoons of honey. Don’t add the honey to the tea when it’s piping hot, since that will kill any of the benefits of raw honey (if using pasteurised honey, pop off when it’s hot). Once it’s cool enough to transfer to the fridge, add the juice of 1-2 lemons, and watch the tea lighten in colour.

My friend Sarah made us pumpkin seed pesto last summer, and I’ve been thinking about it since. I’ve never been a huge fan of the standard pine nut: too expensive, too buttery, often rancid. All in all, not worth it. But a pesto without a nut or seed ain’t a pesto (I think? idk that’s probably not true) and I’d been wanting to find a replacement. The key is to toast the seeds and allow them to cool before blitzing with basil, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan. I use this spread, maybe I too should refrain from calling it pesto before I get called in by the pesto police (imagine), for everything: a classic pasta sauce, a dip for crudités, a filling for a random assortment of summer rolls and sandwiches. It’s versatile and keeps in the fridge for about three weeks.

For the Summer Solstice, I made Alison Roman’s old-fashioned strawberry cake (old-fashioned like a doughnut) and brought it along to a Sunday at the lake. Big hit: between two adults and two kids, we almost demolished it within one day, no notes. AR says you can easily replace strawberries with blackberries, blueberries, pitted sweet cherries, sliced peaches, or figs. My godchild requested this for their next birthday, which is in a winter month, and we discussed replacing the berries with apples. I think it’ll work nicely.

How did you spend your time during Europe’s heatwave? I happened to be in Vienna and, despite the intense 39 degrees, had an absolutely perfect weekend. We’d made little plans, instead going with the flow. Which, let’s say, that’s not exactly in my nature. There’s good reason why no one’s ever referred to me as “chill”. On the way there, I’d read this piece by Erin Nystrom on timekeeping and how it’s relatively new. I love her newsletter and this one put words to a feeling I’ve been having for a while. I know I tend to over-schedule, make plans weeks ahead of time, and when it actually comes to them, I’d rather not. But I also don’t really know how else to fit my social life into my calendar? It ends up leaving way too little time for spontaneous hangouts, and I’m sick and tired of it. So, after Vienna, I’m really committed to more spontan hangs. With only a single dinner reservation, we had the best time. I already went on one spontaneous evening walk & drink date last weekend. I feel like that counts for something? Anyway, Vienna. It was hot as balls, and the stars of the weekend were two places: Bistro Fantasy, where we had both breakfast and dinner on Saturday (unplanned!), and Eissalon Tichy, where we got ice cream on Friday and Sunday evening.

Human, being

are we being held hostage by time?

Editor’s note: My great curiosity in life is why we are the way that we are. More specifically: What are the seemingly benign things we’ve done and choices we’ve made as a society (or that were made for us) throughout the ages that have had profound, unforeseen consequences that we are now left to deal with…

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2 months ago · 56 likes · 9 comments · Erin Nystrom

July’s been a heavy travel month, and besides a few days in Vienna, I spent a week in London. London always brings up a lot for me; of all my second homes it might be the most true, considering I actually lived there for three years. On my second day, walking through south London blasting LCD Soundsystem on my shitty wired Apple earphones that I’ll have to replace because this trip broke what was left of them — I felt caught in between a time-space continuum. Am I 21 or am I 37? In that moment, dappled sun blinding me as I went up another hill, I could not tell. I walked past my old house, the one I lived in 16 years ago, and I genuinely don’t understand how it’s still there but I don’t have keys to enter. I remember lying on a plastic leather couch and watching planes streak across the sky. I remember ordering pizza on Sundays, but mainly eating the side of mozzarella sticks and chicken nuggets. I remember watching Amy make a raw zucchini salad and using the wide side of the knife to smash a garlic clove into a paste for the dressing, a technique I’ve used many times since. I remember poaching my first ever egg in that kitchen. It came out perfectly. I remember toasting bread and keeping the egg warm in a tea towel, while mindlessly staring out the window, resting my chin in my hands. I remember going to lift the poached egg out of the tea towel, only to realize I’d leaned directly onto my perfect poached egg with my elbow, and it had splattered everywhere on the towel. There was no saving it. I remember everything and nothing and think about the lives I could have lived had I stayed in London. The corner shop at the end of our road is now a bougie bakery. I had an incredible sandwich and bought a loaf of sourdough. 21-year-old me could not have afforded it; 37-year-old me barely can. On the last day, I took the train from King’s Cross to Gatwick airport; every train entering the station screeched horrendously, metal on metal, so intense I felt it vibrating through my earrings. A sound that makes me physically ill, this time magnified by a hundred. And then I remembered why I left London.

June has always been my favorite month. It’s the halfway mark of the year, Solstice / Midsummer takes place on the 21st, it’s the true start to summer, where everything remains crisp and fresh, full of possibility and hope. Long days stretch into late, light evenings. The payoff so much sweeter after enduring months of 2pm sunsets.

Emotionally, June is a difficult month for me. This year marked my mother’s 13th death anniversary, and the days leading up to June 13th felt heavy. The week before, I woke up feeling cranky for no reason, craving comfort in the form of nursery food (historically, this has been found in potatoes with butter and cheese). On June 12th this year, I made a Japanese potato salad with eggs and bacon, loosely following this recipe. Grief is a funny thing; over a decade in, and it still surprises me. You’d think that after 13 years of June 13ths I’d be prepared, but that’s not how that works, is it. Some years it’s heavier, a friend of mine describes it as “concrete slab days” which I think hits the mark pretty well. Initially, I set out to write an essay about food, comfort, and what we turn to in search of warmth and familiarity. Frankly, I’m too exhausted. Exhausted by 13 years of oscillating between joy and deep sadness once May starts creeping into the high 20s. Remembering that spring 13 years ago, how bloody young I was to be dealing with the onslaught of caretaking, emotions, and how it continues to shape my life.

There’s not much to be done about this, right? The only way through is through. Durch, as my mother would say. And I deal by cooking, seeing friends, and booking myself an ayurvedic massage. Some days I go to bed at 7pm and sleep for 11h straight, others I go out for a midnight pizza, enjoying the day’s lingering sun. We can only do our best.

During this time, I kept returning to the idea of a neighborhood restaurant. I remain on the hunt for the ever elusive Kiez place where I can rock up to the bar alone, order a perfect Martini (my personal Martini order is dirty and whettt — meaning with brine and heavy-handed on the vermouth) with a plate of hot, crispy, salty fries and a green salad. Since that doesn’t seem to currently exist (in my neighborhood at least), I make do at home with whatever potato feels good that day. I refuse to fry because I hate having to get rid of fry oil and the accompanying splatter that is unavoidable when frying. But the beauty of the potato is its variety. A few dishes I make when craving potatoes: homemade gnocchi are great when you’re feeling like a project, the above-mentioned Japanese salad is easy and quick and a change from my oil & vinegar Austrian go-to, simply boiled cubed potatoes and cabbage with a heavy dollop of butter, yoghurt, and lemon juice on days where I simply want to pull the blanket over my head, roasted wedges served with a herby dip, and potato rösti when I’m feeling ambitious. That and a Martini? I won’t claim that it fixes anything, but it does make me feel better for a hot second.

My current Martini recipe (preferably served in a mini vintage ‘tini glass purchased by your friend Ruth in the south of France) goes as follows: chill your glass(es) and spirits in the freezer for a minimum of two hours. In a frozen mixing glass, pour 35ml each of gin and vodka, 15ml of dry vermouth, and 15ml of olive brine (I use whatever olives I’m eating: lately it’s been anchovy-stuffed olives, which might be too ✨ intense for some. Use whatever olive brine you prefer and have on hand). Top with more ice than you think you need (two generous handfuls) and stir 80 times (this ensures your drink is perfectly icy but never diluted). Double-strain into a frozen glass. Squeeze a long slice of lemon zest over the surface of the drink and rub it around the lip of the glass.

Hi my dudes, it’s been a while! I’ve been working more and feeling like I wasn’t cooking anything interesting, but scrolling through my camera roll, I realized I’d actually been having fun with a few, albeit small, food projects. It’s spring, I can feel it in my bones, the farmer’s market is bursting, let’s go!

I am writing this from Corfu, where I’m working remotely for the week. That means I’ve been eating my body weight in thick, cold yoghurt topped with local honey, kalamata olives, and Greek salads (not all at once). The water in Corfu this time of year is crrrrispy with a capital C. Every time I slip into the turquoise pools of water, it takes my breath away — a shock to the system that ironically makes me feel like I can breathe better afterwards.

The algorithm got to me. I’m deep in rice paper land. Rice paper everything. Gözleme, ham and cheese croissants, bagels … If you look at these as 1:1 replacements, they make piss-poor substitutions, but what I can tell you is that I’ve become deeply obsessed with rice paper ham and cheese rolls. I’ve made them for several brunches, and they never miss. You dip three rice sheets into an egg and milk mixture, overlap them lengthwise, fill them with Dijon mustard, smoked ham and cheddar, and roll them into little buns. Topped with everything seasoning, they bake in the oven (no bloody air fryer needed, though Instagram/TikTok will try and tell you otherwise) at 250°C for 15 minutes and crisp up nicely. They’re moreish without being too heavy and truly fill the ham and cheese croissant-shaped hole in my heart (I don’t have a bakery close by that does great croissants worthy of being thickly layered with ham and cheese).

I had the quintessential cheeseburger (double Oklahama) at Ari’s the other day, a meal that was finished by an equally perfect Banana Split. I thought it would be too much, but it was not. That’s pretty much all I can say, a great late lunch on a Saturday, especially when accompanied by a margarita. Ari’s really is a special place and absolutely worth the hype.

Spring finally arrived properly at my Bauernmarkt, and I’ve been buying green asparagus, peas, and strawberries by the bushel. Most of the meals I’ve made have been simple, allowing the produce to shine: a clear broth with new potatoes, tofu, and asparagus, a pea-heavy pasta with mozzarella, and asparagus topped with sauce gribiche (a perfect condiment if ever there was one). The other day, I cut a handful of strawberries in half and macerated them with a tablespoon of sugar and a few torn basil leaves. Several hours later, they were halfway submerged in their own syrup and easily blended into pulp. Into that, I squeezed the juice of an entire lemon, added a tiny sprinkle of sea salt (I remain true to my salty self), ice cubes, and topped it with sparkling water. Refreshing and addictive, it’s a perfect thirst-quenching dessert drink, unsurprisingly best enjoyed in a hot bath (my bathing habit extends through summer).

After the long winter we had, this new season feels that much sweeter. One of my favorite vegetable guys takes a winter break between October and April. Once he returns, I know we’re in for longer days. The first thing his stand is stocked with is an assortment of young, wild greens. I tried nettle for the first time recently, though I was hesitant, and immediately proved right to be wary of its stinging properties, which left me with a nasty burn that hurt for the better part of a day. That being said, it makes for an excellent ingredient for “pond water,” as I saw it referred to a few times. I thoroughly wash the greens and blitz them with fresh water in a high-powered blender. That mixture sits in the fridge overnight before it’s sieved into a fresh, large jar. I add the juice of a lemon and a pinch of sea salt. Like a juice cleanse without the hunger pangs. I have a glass a day for however long the jar lasts me (anywhere from four to six days), and it makes me feel like a bear waking up after a long winter hibernation: sipping on fresh stream water, nibbling on the first green leaves, thoroughly refreshed and ready for the coming months. (Once sieved, I keep the pulp in a small jar and stir it into my savory morning porridge.)

I’ve been yapping on about tea for a while, and I recently found my new summer favorite: the Perfect Sundowner by Paper & Tea is a blend of hibiscus, apple, and peppermint. I picked it up at a black tea tasting I took my father to, a gift for his March birthday, which ended up being a really nice activity. Paper & Tea hosts various tastings with varying focuses throughout the year, and the black tea one expanded my knowledge of what type of tea I enjoy drinking.

Lastly, I’ve been treating myself like a child lately, a habit I can only recommend. Sometimes that includes purchasing a box of Tim’s mini brownies while otherwise buying sensible things like Skyr and milk.

I just spent a week in London, a home away from home. Some of the people I love most in the world live there, and I lived and studied in London for three years in the early noughts. It’s been over 15 years since I left (hooowww is that possible — time is a circle), and it feels like a fever dream whenever I’m there. A life I could have lived: shared flats with other “young professionals” I would have moved in and out of every two years, time spent stuck on the tube, Sundays at the pub, and the many, many packets of crisps I would have consumed. Although, to be fair, I make up for my lost crisp consumption whenever I visit.
I’m lucky to have this with many cities: a feeling of grief for the lives I could have lived. Feeling at home in a place that isn’t my home. And when I do return to Berlin, a sense of displacement, torn between cities and countries. How incredibly lucky to have so many people I love scattered across different countries, and yet that luck is always accompanied by a sense of grief, of missing out. I just met my friend’s baby, who turned a year old the week before I came to London. That’s an entire year I missed out on — a thought that makes me sad. I go to London about two to three times a year, probably the place I visit most often, and yet, somehow it’s not enough. I can’t split myself into parts, live all the many lives I‘d want to live. How true of our human existence. Life is long, and life is also decidedly short.

On that note, here are some things I always bring back from the UK 🤡

A block of M&S cheddar cheese, sometimes more mature, sometimes less (much like myself). My friend Sarah loves their Cornish Cruncher, so I brought one for Sarah (surprise ruined — if she’s reading this), one for my dad as a little birthday treat, and one for myself. Packs of salt & vinegar crisps, I haven’t actually tried these yet, but I love the brand. I used to be partial to Walkers Salt & Vinegar, but those don’t hit the same way anymore. I love the trashy Big Hoops, they remind me of circular Pringles, and I also adore Monster Munch Pickled Onions. In the age-old fight of Marmite vs. Vegemite, I am firmly team Marmite. The differences are actually not so subtle, although it’s been so long since I had Vegemite, I can’t remember what they are. What I know is that I much prefer Marmite, especially when it comes in this limited Elton John edition.

Tea — usually I only bring back Yorkshire, but my friend JK was telling me about this shortbread tea she thought I’d love, since I kept going on and on about my iced, salted, milky, honeyed, black tea concoctions, and she was spot on. The UK’s tea tradition holds strong, and I really do drink more black tea whenever I return. I love a chocolate egg and, even though I’m sure I could find a version of these in Germany, I enjoy bringing back British sweets for the kids in my life (both grown and small). Chickpeas — specifically by Bold Bean Co. This is the absolute best prepared-bean brand I know, and, since they recently launched in the Netherlands, I hope and pray they’ll expand to Germany soon. If you have the chance to try any of their beans, go wild. They’re plump, perfectly seasoned, and really allow the beans to take centre stage in any dish.

On my first night in London, I went to one of my favourite restaurants in the world: 40 Maltby Street. A wine bar with a small but substantial menu, situated underneath railway arches in Bermondsey. Words almost fail to describe the magic of Maltby Street, perfect for this medium I’d say. It’s a place where hospitality runs deep, you feel welcomed the second you step through the door, even when it’s buzzing and many people ahead of you are waiting for a table. You’re always greeted with a jug of fresh water upon arrival and a gentle walk through of the open wine bottles. Any fritter on the menu is pure perfection, especially on the weeks it comes served with mushroom ketchup (another British culinary classic), the terrines are unctuous and fatty, and the desserts hit the perfect spot between decadent and light. At the end of the night, you’ll probably be the exact level of tipsy that you’re happy to take home a bottle of £30 fizz, no questions asked. This time I was particularly taken with the fried purple sprouting broccoli, served with lemon pickle & yoghurt. The lemon pickle?! Incredible. I genuinely do not understand it. It had the texture of curd, seemingly without the fat, and was sweetened with dried apricots, which is why I loved it so much. We ended up ordering this dish again after finishing the first, and I will try and fail to recreate it at home, that much I know.

In keeping with the UK theme, the first thing I made back home was Hailee Catalano’s Mushy Pea Pasta Salad. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about Hailee’s recipes before. I am genuinely such a fan of hers. I picked up the season’s first fresh peas at the market this past weekend, blanched them in salted water for 50 seconds, and tossed them directly into the salad. They felt too precious to turn into mushy peas. I like this take on a pasta salad and using mushy beans as a creamy base is a genius move. I added a handful of capers because it felt like the dish was calling for it. All in all, a gorgeous spring salad that keeps well in the fridge: perfect for sneaking cold bites from, or bringing to any sort of gathering.

And for today, that has to be enough. Carrying pieces of one of my favourite cities home with me: in the form of a block of cheese, a recipe, or a jar of Marmite.

Am I proud to admit that social media inspired both “recipes” I’m talking about this week? No. Am I going to lie about it? Also, no. So, here we are. At the cusp of spring, the city feels twice as populated as it did just 10 days ago, because everyone is out. As miserable as Berlin winter is, there is something to be said for making it through and collectively letting out a gasp of joy once those first rays of sun touch the city’s pale faces. This past week has felt so joyous, something we are all in dire need of at the moment. Which, in turn, inspired me to play around with something silly and joyous in the kitchen. I’m sure you’ve seen versions of the radish butter terrine on Instagram or TikTok, I first saw it on Sara Tane’s page.

I’ve been feeling uninspired lately, but this weekend I remembered I had a bunch of watermelon radishes and butter in the fridge and decided to try the butter terrine.

I let the butter sit out on the counter overnight so it softens. I’ve seen other people whip it before they start mixing it with the radishes; that also sounds like a good idea. I grated the radishes and squeezed the water out of them, and mixed them all together with a spoon. Which did not work, and at that point, I resorted to my hands. Much better and so much more fun. It felt like the adult version of playdough. Most recipes call for cling film, and I can only highly recommend it. I only had aluminum at home, and when I tried to get the terrine out of the mold I’d used, I couldn’t, because the foil kept ripping :/ Eventually, I let the butter soften for a few hours, after which I was able to shimmy it out of the ramekin, but please, if you do try this at home: use cling film. Once I cut the terrine and layered it onto a slice of sourdough, I finished it with lemon zest and crispy sea salt.

Now that we’re heading into iced beverage season (though Berlin, as per usual, isn’t ready: I ordered an iced Americano at an unnamed place the other day, and the cashier told me apologetically, saying they didn’t have ice yet. COME ON, MY GUYS — call Mr. Ice, we see them driving all over town.) So, I’ve really been leaning into making them at home. I saw a picture of a “Honey Sea Salt Latte”, which I was intrigued by. I don’t often drink coffee at home, and so I substitute black tea here (always bring back a box of Yorkshire Gold whenever I’m in the UK). The gist is: a spoonful of honey at the bottom of a glass, a pinch of sea salt. Mix well with a splash of hot water, add a tea bag and boiling water and let sit for however long you prefer (I usually steep mine anywhere between six to eight minutes), mix with the milk of your choice and pour over two large ice cubes. I like the sweet mellowness honey adds to the tea, and the salt balances any bitterness from steeping the tea for too long (oops, I like it strong). A very fun, sweet, cold drink that really doesn’t taste “salty”, simply well-balanced. But you know, I am a fiend for salt.

In other news, if you’d like to listen to me ramble about grief, cooking, hunger, hosting, and more, today’s your lucky day. My friend Jacqui Gabel just launched her podcast ‘Hungry Woman’ (what a great name) and I was honored to be her first guest. I’ve “known” Jacqui for what I think must be a decade now. She used to write a blog and, if I remember correctly, would speak about the grief of her mother’s passing, fermentation, and living in Seoul. All of which are topics I was incredibly drawn to, having lost my mother just a few years before that. I reached out to her via e-mail and we became pen pals for a bit and she was one of first people I followed on Instagram once I downloaded the app. We loosely kept in touch over the years as Internet friends until we ran into each other in a market in Mexico City three years ago. We’d never met until this point and I remember seeing her and feeling really nervous about saying hi. I did, with the encouragement of the friend I was with at the time, go up and say hello and thankfully I did. What a chance, what a mad encounter. But that’s the universe for you. Which brings us to today. She just launched this podcast which I am so, so excited for. We had such a real, nourishing conversation about truly all things food but also simply being alive and working through it. One of my favorite things I’ve done in the past month.

Listen. I love a salted, brown butter, miso, dark chocolate, uuummmammmiii cookie. In fact, I have at least two Ziplock bags with said cookie dough in my freezer at any given time. I am, however, getting tired of the flavor profile. It’s fantastic, but it’s been my go-to cookie for years, and I’m a little bored with it. (Much like I’m bored of this neverending winter, but you know what’s more boring than that? Complaining. So I’ll shaddawpaboutit.)

I’d read about the Rye-Caraway Chocolate-Chip Cookie at Agi’s Counter in New York — Helen Rosner (affectionately, parasocially known as HelsRos among my pals) wrote about the cookie for the New Yorker, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. I couldn’t find the exact recipe online, but I think I found a pretty good replacement.

Cynthia of Chic Eats wrote a fantastic breakdown of Sycamore Kitchen’s Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies. I followed her recipe instructions to a T, something I don’t usually do, but with several unknown components (rye flour, caraway seeds), I didn’t feel like experimenting. I was feeling particularly cranky the day I made the dough. You know those days, where everything is fine, your to-do list is being checked off, nothing is technically missing or wrong, no one’s mad at you, and yet … you feel off. Foul. I was having one of those days. Actually, I was having one of those weeks, but following direct (very well-written!) instructions helped. I put my fate, or at least my mood, into someone else’s hands for 45 minutes. Admittedly, I made one amendment, or rather, addendum: I saved about 20 pieces of chocolate chunks (the recipe makes approximately 20 cookies) and placed a small chunk or two atop each cookie once it came out of the oven for aesthetic reasons. I then sprinkled extra ground (chopped, in my case) caraway onto the cookies together with the Maldon salt, because the dough wasn’t caraway-y enough to my liking. If you do this while the cookies are fresh out of the oven, their heat will wake up the caraway’s aromatics, and your kitchen will smell like an Eastern European Jewish bakery. The cookies are savory in a way that I deeply appreciate in my desserts; the caraway is such a familiar taste, but in a wholly unexpected place. A genius addition that works particularly well with dark chocolate. It’s fun to play around with different flours and I could taste rye's typically sour twang, although I'm not sure I would have noticed had I not been paying attention. It might be worth upping the rye flour by 30 more grams next time.

I’ve been thinking of the idea of romancing yourself, leaning into the romance of your day-to-day life, a lot lately. Probably because I’m in my winter hibernation and haven’t done much besides going to the gym, reading Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Series (I just finished J is for Judgement, and it’s my favorite one yet), cooking, and sleeping. I don’t know that I’ve ever celebrated Valentine’s Day in my life (though I’ve hosted plenty of Galentine’s brunches); however, this year, I really leaned into it. I bought myself flowers and made a steak dinner. Lit a candle and drank a fun little concoction. I refrain from calling it a mocktail because I despise the name and it comes with way too much bad connotations, but I did make myself a very fun drink! I love anything tart cherry, and I'd come across one too many 'sleepy girl mocktails' on TikTok to resist making my own version of a Salted Cherry Lime Coconut Water. I blitzed 150g defrosted sour cherries together with 150ml of coconut water, a pinch of Maldon salt, and the juice of one lime. Strained that into a glass, added ice cubes (after I took the picture), and enjoyed it alongside my steak. This also works as a super hydrating, post-workout drink.

In an attempt to lean into the fresh set of heavy snowfall two days ago, I made Xueci Cheng’s Sichuan Family’s Meatball Soup. A perfect recipe for this weather: tasty, great for a weeknight, and warms you from the inside. With a relatively short ingredient list, this dish is truly better than the sum of its parts. Incredibly flavorful and nutritious, I’m excited to make it again next week. As a self proclaimed soup girlie, this made me feel cozy and happy, rather than wanting to bash my head against the wall because it’s snowing again.

Chill Crisp

My Sichuan Family’s Meatball Soup

I don’t eat enough soup…

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9 months ago · 65 likes · 6 comments · Xueci Cheng

A short(er) letter this week, perhaps not a bad thing. Let’s hope that next time you read from me, we’ll be one step closer to spring <3.

A few weeks ago, I bought a box containing 5kg of blood oranges, directly from a Sicilian farmer (I should note that the box arrived in perfect condition and on time despite Cyclone Harry — huge shoutout to CrowdFarming and their farmers). I knew it wasn’t the smartest choice when I clicked the purchase button. I did consider getting a mixed box with lemons and grapefruit, but decided against it. I know. Rationally, what’s a one-person household going to do with 5kg of blood oranges? I didn’t have the answer to that, but I wanted to find out. And I really, really wanted those blood oranges. I wanted abundance, indulgence, to taste the sunshine that worked its way to the green leaves of the orange trees, the water that the roots drank and directed up towards their fruit, the blossoming of the flowers into heavy, ripe oranges. Oranges so juicy they drip down your chin and hands, flesh streaked blood red. I wanted to give in to the decadence of it, fully and wholeheartedly. And so, I bought a box containing 5kg of blood oranges.

Turns out, 5kg isn’t even that much? I did eat most of them straight up. There is little more indulgent than soaking in a candle-lit bathtub full of Epsom salts after a hard workout while slowly eating cold segments of blood orange. The temperature is important here. The hot bathtub, in contrast to the cold orange! I stored my box in the bedroom, which is the coldest room in the house. The balcony is too cold at the moment, seeing as it’s been -10°C at night. The bathtub-orange combination is truly a 10/10 winter experience, one that semi makes up for the fact that we haven’t seen any sun in whatfeelslikeadecade.

When I’d eat them as is, I either zested or peeled them beforehand. The zest, I froze. I’m planning on using it in compound butters, mixed into yoghurt, flavored sugar, and baking (I’ve been craving a blueberry pound loaf, which would go great with blood orange sugar). When I peeled them, I tried to cut as much of the white pith away as possible and dried the peels whole. Those I’ll use in black teas and stews. I enjoyed an Earl Grey breakfast tea steeped with some peel this morning, and it was subtle, yet delightful. Also, a gorgeous pop of colour.

For a meal focused on the BOs (nope, not a good abbreviation), I made a citrus fennel salad. I purchased a grapefruit; it felt too wasteful to use only blood oranges, plus I thought the bitterness would pair quite nicely with the rest of the fruit. Inspired by Pierce Abernathy’s citrus fennel salad, that my friend sent me after I told her about the box, I also added kohlrabi to bulk up the dish and add some fresh crunch. A gorgeous, salty, tangy, crunchy, fresh salad that makes you thank nature for winter existing.

I also made a single serving of blood orange posset, something that up until now, I’ve only ever eaten at one of my favorite places in the world: Talldungen in Skåne, Sweden — a country boutique hotel that offers incredible dinners, cozy rooms, a truly perfect breakfast buffet, and cold 3pm Martinis. The first time I went, in 2017 (I think), I didn’t spend the night at the hotel, but only ate dinner. The meal, of which I remember nothing to be quite honest, finished with a lemon posset that stayed with me. A posset is made with only the simplest ingredients: heavy cream, sugar, and fresh lemon juice. (Let’s do an end-of-newsletter tally on how often I’ve used the words “blood orange”, shall we? If this were a drinking game, we’d be shot to hell.) I also used a tiny bit of lemon juice since the acid helps the cream set into a silky, custard-like texture without the addition of eggs or gelatin.
If I can get you to make one thing, please make the posset. It’s such a simple recipe, requires literally no skill, and sets into the silkiest little pudding pot you’ve ever tasted. A bright, decadent treat on a gray winter day. You need 75ml of heavy cream, 15g of white sugar, 20ml of blood orange juice, 1 tablespoon of blood orange zest, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Heat the cream and sugar together on low until the sugar is dissolved. Then increase the heat until you’ve got a sturdy boil going, simmer for three minutes, stirring occasionally so nothing burns. Remove the pot from the heat and add your blood orange juice, blood orange zest, and lemon juice. Stir together, then allow the mixture to cool for 10 minutes. Pour into small glasses or ramekins. Allow to sit in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours, but preferably overnight. Enjoy!

Recently, I saw Helen Graves’ PSA that you can use blood oranges in the same way as lemons for salted preserved blood oranges. Unsure of why I’d never thought of that, but I’m now realizing that this is what kickstarted my entire blood orange journey. I salted and preserved three oranges, and they’re now gently resting in my fridge. Cannot wait to chop them up into salads and dips come spring/summertime.

If I’d had a dinner party in the last two weeks, I would have dipped perfectly peeled segments of blood orange into dark chocolate and topped them with salt. Alas, I was too lazy. I did make a salted pomegranate dark chocolate bark, which is in the same vein, but simpler and requires less precision in peeling pith. I simply melted a generous portion (roughly 100g, I think) of 70% chocolate and poured it into a bowl of dried, peeled pomegranate seeds.

Once the seeds are thoroughly coated, you pile them atop a baking sheet lined with baking paper, spread them into an even layer, salt generously with Maldon, and pop them into the fridge for a few hours. After that, you can break it apart and eat as is. I also crumbled mine into Greek yoghurt, which made for a fruity stracciatella. I store the bark in the freezer because I enjoy the extra cold crunch.

‘Tis orange season, and so of course, all food people are thinking about oranges. At the beginning of this week, Devan posted a recipe for chicken piccata with oranges and fennel. I can think of no better way to ring in February than making this dish. The fennel looks absolutely lush.

And that’s all! I’ve lowkey been in hibernation mode this January, so, this is how I’ve entertained myself. I feel like I must have gotten 110 percent of my daily vitamin C these past few weeks. To finish, ‘blood orange’ tally: 19 (I would have thought it’d be more 🤡).

I’m obsessed with a place I’ve never been to: the now-closed Breadzilla bakery in East Hampton. A few years ago, I had a conversation with friends about Breadzilla. I’m not sure how it started; we were probably talking about sandwiches and lamenting the lack of good options in Berlin. I won’t get into that too deeply, complaining about it is boring, and if you love sandwiches and have spent any time in Berlin, you already know it’s not a great sandwich destination. Yes, there are exceptions, of course (the Tecno Sandwich at Gel Gör and pretty much anything at Rocket & Basil, for example), but you’re far more likely to end up with a sad little Brötchen — half-buttered (one side too thick, the other too sparse) — stuffed with a curling, aged salad “green,” a limp tomato, and a slice of industrial cheese than with a genuinely good sandwich. Rant over.

My two pals were sharing stories about their many visits to Breadzilla, which sounded like genuine heaven on earth for any sandwich lover. From what the internet tells me, the owners retired in 2022 and sold the bakery. Thankfully, their website lives on, allowing me to browse their sandwiches for inspiration. There are so many sandwiches I want to recreate: the Blackened Salmon, the TMP (Tomato, Mozzarella, and Pesto), the Spicy Tuna Jack, and the Cuban. Honestly, there are too many to mention—I want them all. But today, I’m dedicating myself to the Hippy Dippy, or at least my version of it. Originally, Breadzilla’s Hippy Dippy sandwich came served on their toasted honey wheat bread with melted cheddar, avocado, tomato, carrots, alfalfa sprouts, and mustard mayo. Now this is a 90s health sandwich if I’ve ever seen one, and I bloody love it. My family moved to California when I was two, and to me this is a quintessential sandwich from that time. Maybe that’s why it makes me feel so sentimental.

It’s strange to be obsessed with a place I’ve never set foot in. I’ve browsed Breadzilla’s menu so often over the past two or three years that it’s become oddly familiar. At the heart of this obsession is a longing for, and nostalgia tied to, the innocent Americana of the 1990s and early 2000s. Though there wasn’t much innocence about it. But I, for one, remained unaware of geopolitical discourse during my late childhood and early teens. At the time, the USA was enjoying what I’d now describe as its last gasp at being an aspirational global superpower.

Pop culture was shaped and consumed largely through an American lens, and after living in the US and attending a German-American school for 13 years, my own cultural upbringing leaned heavily toward the States. I watched the teenagers on Laguna Beach ask each other to prom, wondering whether my own prom date might surprise me with a pop-up sign coming out of my locker. (He did not. But more than 20 years later, he remains one of my best friends. What’s up, Benny ♥️) All that to say: this sandwich tastes like my childhood.

The hardest thing about getting a sandwich right is the bread. Inspired by Rocket & Basil, I went with Sironi’s Dinkel Weizen loaf instead of hunting for a squishy roll. We don’t lack good sourdough in this city, so I’ll take that win. Just make sure it’s fresh and not sliced too thickly; you want to avoid shredding the roof of your mouth. This sandwich draws inspiration from both Breadzilla’s Hippy Dippy and Rocket & Basil’s Cheese + Salad Sandwich (funnily enough, also a childhood staple for the two founders Sophie & Xenia, albeit in Australia, not California). I made a few changes based on personal preference. I swapped mayonnaise for cream cheese (I’m sorry, I just don’t love mayo unless it’s homemade, and I’m not making mayonnaise every time I fancy a sandwich; plus, I like the tang cream cheese brings). I eliminated cucumber and tomato, they felt too seasonal and summery for sub-zero temperatures.

I did add pickled beets, à la Rocket & Basil, though I used yellow beets from the farmers’ market, which I find milder than red ones. To prepare them, I roasted the beets whole in a small baking tin with a splash of water. Roasting brings out their natural sweetness. The tin gets tightly covered with aluminum foil and goes into a 200°C oven for about two hours. Once cooled to room temperature, I peel and slice the beets, then salt them and cover them with a few splashes of white wine vinegar. After a few hours, they’re ready to use; the rest keeps beautifully in the fridge as a salad addition or snack.

I kept the grated carrot and avocado, quintessentially 90s, but skipped melting the cheddar. I also had some stunning watermelon radish on hand, though that’s optional. Sprouts are always a good idea. I dressed them with a squeeze of lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.

This sandwich is a genuine ray of sunshine. It feels good to eat a rainbow. I apologize—that’s cheesy—but during a Berlin winter, I think we’ll take any cheer and cheese we can get.

A real good Cheese & Veggie Sandwich

Two slices of sourdough

Cream Cheese

Yellow Mustard

sliced Cheddar

1/2 ripe Avocado

Watermelon Radish (optional)

pickled yellow Beetroot (as per above)

Sprouts (I used a mix of alfalfa and radish)

1-2 grated carrots (depending on size and love of carrots, I err on the side of 1 carrot)

1. Mix the cream cheese and mustard to your desired consistency and taste. Slice the cheddar. Grate the carrot. Season the sprouts with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. Prep everything first so assembly is quick and easy.

2. Spread a generous schmear of mustard cream cheese on one slice of sourdough. Layer with cheddar, thin slices of avocado (salt the avocado), watermelon radish, pickled beetroot, sprouts, and grated carrot. Finish with the second slice, also schmear-side down. Wrap in baking paper if you like, it’ll hold together better, then slice in half.

More Bites

Four things I’m currently obsessed with: this Fenchel Anis Kümmel tea by Sonnentor, sourdough bagels, Moon Water, and Laugen Snacks.

The tea is a delight; it includes lemon balm, rare for this combination. I’ve been chugging it first thing in the morning as well as last thing at night. It’s lovely at room temperature with the juice of half a lemon. Refreshing, herbal, slightly sweet, a little sour, and not too heavy on the anise. A perfect tea.

Every time I’ve visited London over the past year, I’ve stopped at The Bagel Guys in Canary Wharf on my way to City Airport to:
a) get a breakfast bagel,
b) get a plane bagel, and
c) stock up on freezer bagels.

Back in Berlin, I recently tried HALO bagels for the first time. While their topping choices are questionable (sozza, I really don’t need baby chard, rocket, and spinach on my bagel, especially not when I ordered it with only schmear, I see what they’re trying to do, but I’m a bagel purist.) That being said, the bagel itself was exceptional. The scallion cream cheese was beautifully seasoned, and the everything bagel was extremely generous with the everything.

Whenever I’m not drinking much alcohol (several people have told me I’m not allowed to call this “damp,” as opposed to Dry January—so let’s go with “a period of humidity” or dewy), I get very into water and tea. My current favorite water is Mondquelle Wasser by St. Leonhards: incredibly soft, thirst-quenching, and contains a bunch of good-for-us minerals.

Aaaand my favorite salty snack, courtesy of DM: Laugen-Knusper Snack made with rice flour. The little cracker balls are intensely crunchy and salty, perfect for keeping boredom at bay during a long train ride.

I am refusing to say 'Happy New Year' because it’s the dead of winter, and it doesn’t truly seem like the beginning of anything until spring arrives. So, as per the pagans I like to imagine as my foremothers, I’ll be celebrating the real New Year on Spring Equinox, March 20th.

As I do pretty much every year during the early days of January, I made Alison Roman’s shallot pasta, adding a splash of both fish sauce and white wine vinegar, which umphed up an already unctuous dish. There’s nothing like stepping back into your own home and smelling the better part of 1kg of shallots fried in good olive oil with garlic, a generous heap of anchovies, and the contents of one entire tube of tomato paste (made from 1.2 kg of tomatoes as my Mutti-branded one kindly reminded me). I finished it with a smattering of dill (unconventional, but I didn’t have any parsley in the fridge) and lemon zest, and ate it accompanied by a ball of mozzarella. The sauce reminds me of canned SpaghettiOs, which I can only have eaten once in my life, but apparently, it stuck with me. All that to say, it’s incredibly creamy and softly wraps itself around the pasta in a deeply comforting way.

And finally, I have a recipe that I first spoke about over a year ago ^^ when I’d just come back from Greece. Revithia is a traditional Greek dish, typically a simple, slow-simmered chickpea soup or stew made with olive oil, onion, and lemon. I enjoyed an absolutely perfect rendition of it two days in a row, at Diporto in Athens.

I have about a billion caveats to this recipe. First of all, I’m not Greek, and in no way is this an “authentic” recipe. I’m a bean lover (adorer? connoisseur? collector!), and I rejoice in the fact that the magic of baking soda means that I can now finally, finally enjoy chickpeas cooked at home (I’ve tried cooking ancient chickpeas for 8 hours one too many times. iykyk. And yes, freshness is absolutely the issue when it comes to cooking chickpeas, but I’ve found that soaking them with baking soda lends that last piece of magic, turning a “this is a fine chickpea I’m happy to eat” into “don’t talk to me while I savor every last plump mouthful of oily, salty chickpea.”)

Most recipes don’t call for chicken stock, but if you’ve got it, use it. It makes the finished dish that much better. Because how could it not? Chicken stock is liquid gold. However, if you’re a vegetarian, or don’t have any (homemade!) stock on hand, I promise, promise, promise you it will still be gorgeous.

I don’t believe in the idea that salt slows the softening process when cooking beans, so I add it right at the beginning. When I was reading up on Revithia, I saw someone mention that olive oil gets added at the end, so the heat doesn’t degrade its healthy properties. I loved that take. Additionally, it means that its fresh flavor is preserved, and the combination of olive oil and lemon juice shines that much brighter. It also lends itself as a shortcut to the entire process since nothing needs to be sautéed.

Something I inherently knew, but was a useful tip for this impatient gal via this recipe: simmer over medium-low heat. That’s how the chickpeas cook evenly and the flavors properly meld. A rolling boil will make the outsides mushy and the insides undercooked.

This is kind of annoying, but I boil the chickpeas for five minutes in clean, fresh water. Then I discard that water, and only after do I add all the aromatics, stock, etc. to the pot. This method is said to help remove some of the naturally occurring compounds in beans that can lead to gas and indigestion.

This is no life-changing bowl of chickpeas. After all, I haven’t been at it for 130+ years like Diporto. It is, however, a very good bowl of chickpeas. Once I’m done eating them pure, as-is, with slices of sourdough, I use the beans in salads or roasted vegetable medleys. They work beautifully in homemade hummus, I like to pair them with some white beans for extra creaminess. Sometimes I separate the chickpeas from their liquid, sip the broth in the morning, and warm them up in a pan with olive oil, topping the dish with a fried egg and some herbs for lunch. Really, the possibilities are endless.

Greek Chickpea Soup (Revithia)

200g dried chickpeas

1 large onion, minced into bite-sized pieces

2-3 cloves of garlic, smashed

3-4 bay leaves

1 sprig of oregano

salt & pepper

chicken or vegetable stock (optional)

juice of 1 particularly juicy lemon or 2 smaller/drier lemons

1. Soak your chickpeas with a hefty tablespoon of baking soda for anywhere between 12-24 hours before you plan on cooking them. Once soaked, rinse thoroughly.

2. Add the chickpeas to a pot with enough water to cover and boil for five minutes. Drain the chickpeas, discard the water, and return the chickpeas to the pot.

3. Add all remaining ingredients to the pot and season with salt and pepper. Don’t salt too heavily, as the liquid will reduce and you don’t want an overly salty broth.

4. Bring to a boil, then lower to a gentle, medium-low simmer. Start checking your beans at the 40-minute mark; mine took about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The last time I cooked them, they took nearly three hours. Cooking time will vary depending on the freshness of your chickpeas and how tender you like them.

   I adhere to Tamar Adler’s method of only halting the cooking process once you’ve tried seven beans and they’re all impossibly delicious and leave you wanting more.

5. Finish with a generous pour of olive oil, lemon juice to taste, and adjust salt as needed.

I read a bunch of recipes, but these four were the most helpful in getting me to chickpea success:

• https://realgreekrecipes.com/greek-chickpea-soup/

• https://www.mygreekdish.com/recipe/greek-chickpea-soup-recipe-revithia/

• https://www.foodbymaria.com/chickpea-soup/

• https://30daysofgreekfood.com/mediterranean-chickpea-soup/

Good morning! Which is something my dad says to me, regardless of the time he calls. I guess here it’s actually appropriate, since I schedule my letters for 10.05 am. I had a very different newsletter planned for this week: I wanted to make Finnish salmon soup, but since spending a week in freezing cold Sweden, I’ve come down with a pretty bad cold, which has stopped me from making that specific recipe because I don’t like to pour liters of dairy down my throat when I’m sick (I’m pretty sure there’s a reason for that. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), dairy is considered a damp and cold food, which can create phlegm when you have a cold. No thanks.), which is why this letter is more bits and bobs.

I still cooked though! Like Deb’s “I want chocolate cake” cake, which I made twice within the span of six days. Once, for my brother, who turned 44 and once for my godchild, who turned 4 (what a nice balance, I hadn’t noticed! So many fours!). Both times, the cake was a hit, once I even made it with kids. No small feat if you’ve ever cooked with children. It relies mainly on ingredients you probably have kicking around the kitchen if you bake at all (flour, cocoa, etc … ), and I only needed to buy the dark chocolate and buttermilk. I reduced the amount of sugar in both the cake and the frosting since American recipes tend to be too sweet (I want to say I used 130g in the cake) and in the frosting, I only used 125g of powdered sugar since I used dark chocolate with some sugar in it, rather than unsweetened chocolate. Neither the cake nor the frosting consistency suffered. I also used regular white sugar for the cake, since soft brown sugar is hard to find here. Not only does the cake taste delicious, but it’s also perfectly salted and has a delightful cake-to-frosting ratio. It’s also the perfect size; I would say it generously serves about 10 people — a perfect little chocolate cake for your repertoire.

The idea of the quintessential perfect bean & cheese burrito has recently haunted me. Those guys that come in aluminium foil, that you reheat in the microwave. I’ve had a craving for weeks and I’ve made several iterations, but none of them have quite hit the spot. It’s difficult to find good tortilla wraps in Germany. They’re either too big or not pliable enough. The first time I fried garlic in butter with some chili and cumin, added tinned black beans and cooked those in salty chicken stock. Great flavor, but I don’t love black beans and their texture isn’t right for refried beans. The second time I used giant white beans, which. Silly. That obviously didn’t work, though I cooked them with salsa verde rather than chicken stock, something I’m not too embarrassed to admit I saw on TikTok. That didn’t work either, because the white beans are too bland, and even though I love salsa verde, in this case, it’s too sour. I made absolutely gorgeous refried beans in Sweden, of all places. Butter, garlic, cumin, chili, and a mixture of borlotti, white, and black beans. The consistency was perfect and I really enjoyed the taste of the three different beans. I will be continuing on this journey.

I’ve also been making a bunch of grilled cheese sandwiches. I started buying the Persische Olive olive sourdough at my favorite bakery cena, and my GOD it’s so good in a grilled cheese. The olive mixture, which consists of a mix of olives, garlic, herbs, and nuts, is directly blended into the sourdough and it makes for an extremely moist and tasty loaf. I eat the grilled cheese with some apple slices alongside it, for the sweet crunch, and I start the meal with a heaping pile of bitter greens cooked with garlic, olive oil, and chicken stock, finished with lemon because it makes me feel virtuous and healthy before I tear into a glorious bronzed, buttered, glistening grilled cheese sandwich. I use a mixture of drained mozzarella and cheddar for the cheese filling and slather one side of the sandwich with grainy French mustard.

In Malmö, I had the best falafel of my life at Mr. Falafel (falafel is often so dry?? these guys were the opposite, heavy on sesame seeds in the crust, freshly fried, and cutely adorned with a tahini dip and some pomegranate seeds), but also a delightful savory egg and pecorino croissant at Farina bakery. I went two days in a row and bought a pizza bianca stuffed with mozzarella, olives, pesto, and rocket for my travels home.

It’s hard to write about things you really love, especially books or other pieces of written art. I often find myself falling into the tone of whatever it is I’m describing, doing neither the author nor myself justice. That being said, I hope you’ll trust when I say that Tamar Adler’s book An Everlasting Meal changed my life. Not in a dramatic “decided to move to Bali and become a yoga teacher” way (blessedly, I was spared that phase on my yogic journey), but it changed the way I cook and approach food. It changed how I shop, how I store my produce, and what I do with leftover scraps. It truly was a game-changer.

Tamar Adler continues in the tradition of writers such a M. F. K. Fisher, whose seminal work “How to Cook a Wolf” was published in the middle of WWII in 1942. Cooking that’s almost sparse, makes use of everything, is very vegetable-forward, and celebrates the simple. An Everlasting Meal’s tagline, “cooking with economy and grace” is so fitting, and I remember watching a video of Adler back in 2012 where she walks the viewer through her version of food prep. Spending a few hours on a Sunday washing greens, roasting beets, picking parsley. It looked so wholesome, so inviting, looking out for your future self. An activity that one could happily do alone, as well as invite someone to join. I first read her book during an extremely difficult time in my life, and it was the perfect cozy little, steam-filled world to escape into. Perhaps it was around that time that I realized that all those hours I spent thinking about food, preparing food, were a thing. It was worthwhile. I didn’t have to start a food blog or teach myself how to handle a Canon point & shoot; I could simply spend a dark winter afternoon separating pomegranate seeds from their husk, and that could be that, and it would be worth my time.

A few things I started doing after I’d read AEM: after I’ve strip kale leaves from their stems and pick parsley, I’ll make a green jam or pesto-like condiment by throwing all my greens (carrot and radish tops also make a great addition here, thoroughly washed) into a pot with a healthy glug of olive oil, a few cloves of garlic, salt, and lemon juice. Once it seems done, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, it’s blitzed with an immersion blender and ready to be spread on bread, used as a dip, or to fry eggs in.

If I have nothing in the fridge except for some vegetables, I’ll roast those in the oven and pile them on top of sourdough that’s been fried in olive oil. Finish it with an egg and call it dinner. In fact, add an egg (boiled or fried) to pretty much anything and call it a meal. Fried potatoes, spaghetti, steamed greens, etc … you get the picture.

I started making my own mayonnaise because of Adler. This recipe from Serious Eats, which uses an immersion blender, has been my go-to for years. I have never once successfully whipped mayonnaise by hand, but this recipe works perfectly every single time. I love to eat the wobbly spread with a bunch of steamed and boiled vegetables (think potatoes, fennel, carrots) and pair them alongside fresh guys (tomatoes, cucumbers), then finish with a side of either anchovies or sardines as well as a few jammy eggs. It’s basically a simple, at-home version of Grand Aioli. A Spanish tortilla also goes great with homemade mayo, although I really need to get myself a tortilla pan so that mine stands a chance of becoming a little more photogenic (hence, no picture of my wonky, broken tortilla from last week).

Adler taught me to “meal prep”, not in the fitness YouTuber sense of the word, as in: preparing five chia seed puddings and chicken breasts with brown rice and broccoli for the week. I do, however, like to set myself up for success and soothe my anxious brain. In order to do that, I often make a medley of things on the weekend. I will always cook down a bunch of greens with olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice, as well as poach two chicken thighs and two wings in salted water. Once poached, I remove the meat and toss the bones, wobbly bits, cartilage, and skin back into the pot to make a stock. I drink the stock throughout the week (with a squeeze of lemon) and use it to cook rice or greens. Recently, I braised two heads of fennel with a ladle of chicken broth, added a splash of vinegar and fresh parsley & dill at the end, and ate it with a slice of toasted sourdough, which I rubbed raw garlic onto. Fennel lusciously melts into the braising liquid, and at the end, you’re left with a very rich-tasting pile of thoroughly cooked vegetables, my absolute favorite. I’ll make a batch of rice, which is supplemented with cubed carrots, mushrooms (shiitake are my favorite because a little goes a long way), and seaweed flakes. I’ll eat the rice with some of the chicken meat, the rest I save for rice bowls during the week, or make a quick chicken salad to put on top of pumpernickel bread (I’m having a deep pumpernickel renaissance, it feels very 90s). Sometimes I’ll use the rice to make a rice bowl with a sardine salad (tinned sardines mixed with yoghurt or skyr, dill, mustard, salt, and lemon juice), but often I’ll reheat it for breakfast, topped with a pat of butter, jammy boiled eggs, and soy sauce. The combination of soy sauce, butter, and hot rice is heavenly.

A few summers ago, I started brewing herbal teas and making big batches to keep in the fridge. When it’s warm, I particularly love iced lemon verbena with lemon balm. I’ve kept up the habit, even though in winter I don’t store the tea in the fridge. Last week, I made a batch of oat straw, nettle, hibiscus, and rose hip tea. This week, it was chamomile, raspberry leaf, and fennel anise seed. Drinking cold or room-temperature herbal tea feels deeply more hydrating than plain old water. Plus, I have to believe that all those herbs are doing a great job at adding minerals and nutrients to my system. And I do love the color of hibiscus.

More Bites

Listen, I’m the last person to start yapping about vegan-substitue-anything. However, when it comes to ice cream, I trust my friend Kavita blindly and when she suggested we go to soi & co. for a post lunch (Backfisch at trio, perfect as per usual) sweet treat, I had zero reason to say no. soi & co. is a small, plant-based café that serves vegan pastries, ice cream, and specialty coffee. They make a lot of their offering with, you guessed it, soy. We had the plain ice cream which is served with a dash of mimi ferments soy sauce and my gosh, what a combination. Salty, tangy, creamy, fermented, it’s everything I want on my plate. They also make fresh tofu, which I’m excited to try next time.

Ouff, it’s been two+ months since I last wrote you! How!! Actually, I know how & why. I had a chaotic summer. I was meant to spend all of August at home in Berlin, but due to circumstances, instead I ended up getting into a car with two adorable long-haired Chihuahuas and two equally adorable pals on August 4th, beelining it down to northern Italy while blasting Pulp. I spent my birthday on a smoll island, ate fritto misto, swam in lake water, shelled fresh borlotti beans, and walked up and down more mountains than I cared to. Following that, I spent 11 days on Mallorca with my good friend and her two kids, where I drank a decent amount of vermouth and finally got into making my own pesto (the house we were staying at had an impressive basil bush).

I’ve had a strong dislike of pesto in the past; it reminded me of sad student dinners where a jar of old pesto was plopped onto the table, everyone got a dollop on top of their severely overcooked farfalle or penne (famously the worst pasta shapes), and that was dinner. However, since growing my own basil this summer, I’ve really enjoyed making my own, substituting toasted pumpkin seeds for pine nuts (cheaper and local, a trick I learned from my pal Sarah) and playing with the two basil varieties I grew. Pesto also freezes beautifully and will serve as a bright reminder of summer in the coming darker months.

The rest of August was spent living in a tattoo studio. Which, that’s a long story. I’m trying to embrace the chaos, chaos apparently being my new constant for now.

I also launched a whole business and, after five years of contract employment and a one-year sabbatical, I’m officially a freelancer again. It feels good, it feels right, and it feels bloody scary. But, as one of my old-bosses-turned-friends reminded me, I’m not deciding on the rest of my life. I’m deciding on my next step. And for now, that step is not tethering myself to just one brand but going freelance. So, please: if you’re a Nordic food & beverage brand looking to enter the German market, you know where to find me. 💙

What have I been cooking lately? Not much. I’ve been bopping between my own apartment and my parents’ in Weissensee. I really haven’t spent much time in my own kitchen over the last few months, but the one thing I did make back in September was this incredible corn bisque with a tomato grilled cheese, recipe by Hailee Catalano (so successful in fact, that I immediately ordered her cookbook). I’ve been following her online for a while, but this simple recipe, and I’m not even a huge corn girlie, really convinced me. In my heart, I knew I should have left the tomato out of the grilled cheese sandwich, but my friend JK is forever annoyed with me when I try a new recipe and immediately make changes instead of cooking it as written for the first time, which — fair. You can’t judge a recipe when you’ve made a thousand ammendments. However, a wheeettt tomato in a grilled cheese sandwich is just rarely going to work for me, and I should have known better. It was still very lekker though, please enjoy this terrible picture of said dinner.

Of course, I had to make my summer classics: tomato water pasta as well as Rachel Roddy’s rice-stuffed baked tomatoes with potatoes. I implore you to make these if you can still get your hands on some good tomatoes. Use vorwiegend festkochende (waxy) potatoes and eat them day of. The stuffed tomatoes keep well for a few days, but the potatoes lose their gorgeous caramelized chewiness once they’ve spent a night in the fridge.

I’ve also eaten many turkey cheddar sandwiches on deeply toasted pumpernickel bread. That experience has been made a lot better since I found tangy American yellow mustard at Metro. You don’t want high-quality, brain-tinglingly spicy French mustard for a sandwich like that. It’s the salty, vinegar-y yellow spread that’s appropriate here. I’ve also made several mushroom risottos in the last few months, both my farmer’s market and the one in Weissensee are brimming with all different types of mushrooms and it’s been fun to play around with different varieties. Chanterelles do reign supreme, though. The one thing I’ve found to make a huge difference is making my own vegetable stock. I use several ribs of celery, two quartered onions (skin on), a few cloves of garlic (also skin on), two large carrots chopped into chunks, and, most importantly, shiitake mushroom stems. Cover that with cold water and salt, and let it simmer for an hour. It makes for a great risotto base and ensures that you’re cooking your rice in something flavorful. The mushroom stems in particular deepen the entire dish’s taste.

Now it’s the very end of October and I’m pre-ordering a 5-7 kg turkey at my butcher’s for Thanksgiving. I am genuinely shocked at how fast this year has gone by, such a cliché, and yet every year it feels more and more true. I’m ready for popcorn and Negroni nights and my annual viewing of Practical Magic and Hocus Pocus. It might be basic, but never change a winning team.

More Bites

I know that everyone’s raving about Ari’s and it really is well deserved. The space is so fun, actual good vibes without being too loud (bad restaurant acoustics are a pet peeve of mine), and every single time I’ve been there, Arianna’s been working the floor. You can tell how serious her dedication to the business is. I’ve tried my way through the classics — the salads, the fries, the chopped cheese (all bomb although the salads are a little bit too heavy for my liking) but the real winner is the jalapeño smash (I went with a big group the other day, we each had one jalapeño burger and then proceeded two order two more that we shared between the six of us because we were all full but still wanted more burgers. Nothing is more ridiculous than six adults passing two small burgers around in a circle, but it was much needed.) as well as the tres leche cake. It’s perfectly seasoned, not too sweet, and the pumpkin seed crunch situation is genius.

Lastly, Devan Grimsrud, a fellow substacker, freelance recipe developer, and writer asked me to contribute to her bi-monthly “Fave Five” column, which I was more than

darn good by devan grimsrud

fave five #20

today’s fave five is from liv fleischhacker, born and bred berliner, fellow substacker, and all around food and bev expert. liv and i met through friends of friends some time in the first few months that i moved to berlin. she was not the first “echter berliner” i’d met (though they…

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10 months ago · 5 likes

honored to do. My faves feature a vermouth from Franken, a Berlin-based dupe for Cheez-Its, my favorite Australian piano player, and more.

Last summer, I threw myself a birthday party for the first time in forever. On the menu: fried onion & dill pickle dip, deviled eggs, a tomato tart, and a whooole bunch o’ hot dogs. So many hot dogs, in fact, that I continued eating dogs for a week after. Not that I’m complaining, I love a dawg, which is why I decided to make the Hot Dog Party™ an annual summer shindig, not necessarily attached to my birthday.

For June’s Last Sunday of the Month Lunch, I added potato salad (a classic, I prefer mine in the style of southern Germany: without mayonnaise and with the addition of radishes, pickles, and herbs), a type of chimichurri sauce (fresh herbs, raw onions, lemon juice, and olive oil), and bags and bags of chips for dipping. To finish, chocolate chip cookies baked straight from the freezer.

I’ve always dreamed of the classic Chicago, drag it through the garden hot dog. From what I understand a Chicago dog to be, and I trust Serious Eats on this, it’s the following:

The definition of a Chicago-style is far more confusing than you'd think it'd be, but I'll start with the one we are all most familiar with: the classic Chicago-style hot dog is an all-beef hot dog on a poppyseed bun topped with mustard, relish, chopped onion, tomato slices, a pickle spear, sport peppers, and celery salt.

That. Sounds. Like. Heaven. However, I’ve yet to visit Chicago and I live in a place where a few of these ingredients would be hard to find. I also don’t necessarily love the idea of a tomato on my hot dog. I’ve tried! It’s fine! But not for me. I’ve come up with my (current) personal version of the ideal dog, a Berlin hot dog if you will. It includes: an all-beef sausage (I buy these, I find them to be the snappiest, and they are 100% beef, which is harder to find here), a long pickle slice (I use these), ketchup (instead of the tomato), French’s yellow mustard (there’s something about the cheap, vinegary yellow mustard that hits in a way that nice mustard simply doesn’t), I get the REWE Beste Wahl Brioche Hot Dog Rolls (here), and, instead of having poppyseed buns which are impossible to find, I top the entire thing with everything bagel seasoning. Most definitely not for everyone, but to me — she’s perfect.

My vision for this year’s Hot Dog Party was summer vacation by the pool. I recently read Anne Helen Peterson’s piece on summer vacation, and it reminded me how simple summer can and should be. Good memories of summer are often based on repetition: going to the same place every year, knowing what to expect, and anticipating that place throughout the rest of the year. Adventures and memories developing out of boredom, kids figuring it out without much parental supervision or planning. That’s what I was going for, not necessarily people being bored, but that sense of nostalgia and simplicity. And repetition! Throwing a Hot Dog Party every summer, continuing on with the tradition of Last Sunday of the Month Lunch even on days when hosting feels overwhelming or the clean-up sounds like too much of a fuss. I’ve been going to the pool a lot again this summer. I snagged one of the last 20er Karten that only cost 60 Euro, they went up to 80 Euro this year, which I find an astonishing increase and frankly, rude. Especially when you consider places like Sweden, Finland, or Denmark where public swimming is easily accessible at zero cost. I digress, but I firmly believe that putting yourself into a body of water, be that a pool or a lake, should be every human being’s right. Especially in June, July, and August. There’s something that feels particularly right about a snappy, salty hot dog enjoyed after a long swim.

My friends are sweet baby geniuses, and besides wine, we had an entire array of interesting non-alcoholic options to drink. It ran the gamut from homemade ferments to berry-basil limeade. I added an herb lemonade to the mix. Earlier this year, I joined the mauergarten e.V. community garden in Mauerpark and have been tending to my very own little raised bed since April. As someone who decidedly does not have a green thumb, I wanted to keep it simple, so I sowed a bunch of herbs: coriander, two types of basil, dill, chives, chamomile, and marigold. The chives did not make it; the dill actually isn’t doing so well because it’s too damn sunny (I guess that’s why it’s a Nordic herb) but both coriander and basil are thriving. The coriander and the Zitronenbasilikum in particular are the most fragrant versions I’ve ever smelled. I pick a small bouquet almost every day when I water the herbs, and it perfumes my clothes, hands, and pockets. When I walked the Camino earlier this year, I kept passing freshly mowed wildflower meadows and the air hung thick with the smell of freshly cut grass and herbs. It made me crave homemade herb lemonade, impossible on the Camino, but very possible now that I’m back home. I made a very simple — ha! — simple syrup using a ½:1 ratio of sugar to water, brought it to a boil, put two solid fistfuls of mixed herbs (basil, lemon basil, some dill, and coriander) in there for a minute before taking it off heat and steeping the herbs for ca. 40 minutes. I was worried that if I went any longer, it might turn bitter. Then, I strained the liquid through a sieve into a jam jar. Afterwards, I poured several good glugs into a large jug, added cold water, the juice of two lemons, ice cubes, and several dashes of apple cider vinegar (it needed some more acid), as well as a pinch of salt, to season. Out came the most delightful concoction. Pure electrolytes. Herbaceous, refreshing, sweet, and pleasingly sour, it’s low-key all I want to drink this summer (and I’m currently making a fresh batch). This also makes a delightful gin tonic mixer. Simply add a few tablespoons of the herb syrup into a glass, pour in your gin, add ice cubes, stir, squeeze in some lemon juice, and top with sparkling water. A perfect summer cocktail.

Guys, I got a new fridge. Some of you will know what a huge deal this is. My old fridge had been in my life for 30 years; does that mean I’ll keep this one until I’m 66? Somehow, I doubt it. This feels like an oddly personal and difficult piece to write. Which makes me feel silly, it’s “only” a fridge. Why does a kitchen appliance make me feel vulnerable? I guess as a whole, there aren’t that many things I own that have lasted for such a long stretch of time. As someone who cooks a lot, I also use my fridge a lot. I’ve stored gems I’ve brought back from trips in there (in the form of wine, beans, miso paste, condiments, etc …), and I think you could get a decent understanding of me as a person with a glimpse into my fridge. I feel (felt) very attached to this aging, no longer white, kitchen appliance.

Let’s back up. Thirty years ago, my parents bought a fridge (pictured above). At the time, I was six years old, and I was able to straight up walk into said fridge when we had it delivered (it stands at 152 cm; I was neither a shockingly short nor tall 6-year-old). It’s an old gastro fridge, which is why it’s huge. We’d just moved back from the States, and I’m assuming my parents were influenced by their choice because many Americans have big fridges. Unfortunately, it was less practical than a “regular” American fridge. Just big and cavernous with absolutely zero door space or any designated shelves for bottles, condiments, etc … And yet, we made do (I kid).

What I remember most fondly about my childhood version of the fridge is the 1.65 kg tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese my dad purchased at Metro. We’d become a cream cheese family in the States, and the tubs (which I remember to be 5 kg, but I guess that really is too much for a family of four?) were a staple in our home. Once emptied, we’d wash them and use them to store leftovers or bring food to potlucks.

My parents kept the fridge, which made its way to me when I moved back to Berlin in 2011. And since then, my pals, it’s been in my possession. This fridge has been lore for many years. Most people, when they see it for the first time, are equally shocked and delighted, some more weirded out than others. I’m a one-person household, it’s a lotta fridge. I probably only made use of 1/3 of the actual fridge space. Because it had been grandfathered into my life (or I into its?), it was stock full with stuff I’d never purchased. The weirdest / oldest assortment shown below.

Almost 2kg of “original” “Mississippi” barbeque sauce, I have no clue how this got into the fridge. Knorr vegetable broth with decade-old branding. Tomatillo salsa from Whole Foods (my last trip to the States was in 2023; I certainly don’t remember purchasing it then).

Nutritional yeast flakes from a failed attempt at going vegan in 2012. Pineapple salsa from Trader Joe’s, see above re: last trip to the States. Drugs in a bottle, helpfully labeled “don’t drink” — thanks, past me! And finally, the coup de gras: semi-dark chocolate in the shape of a bottle, filled with Grasovka bottle. A real treasure trove. Most, if not all, of the best-before dates are circling around the 2010s. That should tell you something.

Okay, and finally, to make this complete. The new fridge. I love her so much. She doesn’t leak (what a novelty), I don’t have to shove her shut firmly to make sure she’s really closed, everything is so clean (I vow to keep it that way), there’s light inside, the freezer isn’t frozen shut, I have a cosmetics shelf!, I can pinpoint when & what I purchased for every single item in there. I could go on forever. That being said, I got emotional when the old fridge was picked up. It’s “just” a fridge, but this is truly the first grown-up fridge I’ve ever owned in my entire life, and the old one has seen me through what? 90% of my life? It’s a funny feeling. After living with the new fridge for a few weeks, though, I’m not exactly in mourning for the old one. And yet, I felt a small tug when two v. strong Russian gentlemen carted her out of my apartment, trailing a wet puddle of cooling liquid. It really was time to let her go.

I’ve been meaning to have people over at my house more. Hosting dinners, cocktails & nibbles, or lunches. Essentially, I want to gather with the people I love, and new pals, more often. The problem is that I don’t think my kitchen or apartment layout is particularly well-suited to hosting. Which, now that I say it (type it?) out loud, sounds silly. I thankfully decided not to let that stop me; not every meal needs to be a production. I came up with “Last Sunday of the Month Lunch” (please for the love of god if anyone has a better name for this, let me know) earlier this year. The idea is simple: every last Sunday of the month (easy to remember for people and put it into their calendars as a recurring event) I’ve put out a standing invitation to lunch. As long as I’m in Berlin, my doors are open.

We begin at 2pm (late, Italian lunch vibes), people can bring anything they want to drink (wine, non-alc, homemade mango kefir like the true pal that he is Cory did in February) and I’ll have a big pot of something ready. I ask that people let me know by the Friday before if they’ll be joining, so I can get my shopping and prep done on Saturday and have also extended invitations to partners I don’t know well or any friends they’d like to bring along / happen to be in town. In February I made a batch of pork fennel meatballs in a fresh tomato broth. The broth was bangin’, truly the best part of the meal. Made with 850g of cherry tomatoes, I used a condimento agrodolce bianco, which is white wine vinegar mixed with grape juice, lending a sweet/sour vibe to the entire dish. We had a bitter greens salad and gorgeous sourdough bread from cena to accompany it, topped it off with a showering of herbs. I baked some chocolate chip cookies I had in the freezer to finish the meal (still trying to perfect those cookies, recipe soon I hope). A gorgeous meal, a really perfect day. This is saying a lot considering I used to get anxiety when bringing friends from different parts of my life together. To this day, it still makes me nervous, but I try my best to override those nerves. I simply don’t like the idea of the only uniting factor being me? Probably way too navel-gazing of me to be honest, and if February’s lunch was any indication, a ridiculous thought. Lunch was a delight! There’s nothing more heartwarming than watching two people I know & love, who know me from different parts of my life and from different contexts, get along and laugh at the same joke. We genuinely had such fun, interesting conversations, giggled a lot, and enjoyed the afternoon. People left around 7.30pm — a perfect long lunch and I walked one of my friends home afterwards. There’s not much more that I could ask for.

For the March edition, I made a heavy pan of Alison Roman’s lasagne. A very good lasagne indeed, this vegetarian dish replaces bechamel with a dairy-heavy mix of ricotta, cream, parmesan, and mozzarella and, if left in the oven long enough, will look like you’ve excavated it from ancient Rome. A very good, aged lasagne if you will. Lasagne is truly a labor of love; you gotta be feeding a minimum of four mouths to make it worth the effort, but by god, the leftovers on Monday were worth it alone. Served alongside a salad that included baby chard, two types of radicchio, mint, parsley, and iceberg, I’m almost sad we’re headed out of lasagne season. (I said almost!)

Another delightful thing I made last month: smitten kitchen’s perfect blueberry muffin loaf. I love a blueberry muffin - who doesn’t? - but I’m not making muffins at home. This loaf does a great job at maintaining all the things you love about the muffin - juicy blueberries and a crispy top - while keeping it simple. Not too sweet, a perfect snacking cake, with a crispy crunchy sugar-y lid it feels just in time for the spring weather we’re experiencing. In fact, I’m making another loaf for this weekend’s brunch. It keeps well (not that you’ll need it to) as long as you don’t wrap it but simply store it in the loaf pan at room temperature.

I spent the first two weeks of this year in Japan, but I feel unsure writing about my trip. I don't want to be another Westerner writing about the ~ magic of Japan, which, frankly, is magical. It’s also a complex country and culture with issues that I can’t begin to pretend to understand. I feel too uninformed, like too much of a tourist. I will say, that I miss Japanese breakfast and konbini (convenience store) snacks every single day with a burning heart, longing for perfect 1€ ume rice balls and tiny, fluffy ham & cheese sandwiches.

The number of international visitors arriving in Japan has almost doubled since 2015; frankly, I'm a part of that. I've been feeling increasingly conflicted about travel, especially at the rate I've been going for the last six months. I currently have the time, and I have some resources as long as I stick to a budget, the world is large and there's so much to see. But how do I travel respectfully, how do I not participate in the further erosion of the earth's resources? I do not have the answers, I'm contemplating out loud. Ugh, I wish I had answers.

That being said, like seemingly everyone else on Instagram, January felt like it was 1.000 days long. My month felt fractured, spending half of it so far away from home, followed by a week in a dull, jet-lagged fog. I only came to life during the last few days of January. I didn't cook much, or well. My first attempt at matzo ball soup fell apart terribly, quite literally. I succumbed to eating chicken stock with floating bits of eggy matzo for several days. Taste-wise, not terrible! But quite unappealing to look at. Somewhere, my Jewish ancestors are giggling at me. I made a very fun, huge pop tart / galette pie for my goddaughter's eighth birthday (inspired by Lottie & Doof) and while the dough came out perfectly flaky, using Claire Saffitz's recipe, the pie was too sweet with its combination of homemade vanilla custard, strawberry jam, and thick powdered sugar glaze. Kitchen failures are humbling and I'd like to think I learn something from each one but, they don't feel all too great. Especially not when you're eating that failure for four days in a row (I wasn’t going to waste a beautiful pot of chicken stock).

I've been on a Laurie Colwin kick lately. I first read her work in a food writing course I took over a decade ago with Luisa Weiss. Home Cooking is a seminal work, published in 1988. Together with M.F.K. Fisher, I think we can safely refer to it as one of the ur-texts of the food memoir. Colwin started a trend that she would not live to see (she died quite young in 1992 from an aortic aneurysm). I've been digging into Colwin's other work, namely her novels. Beginning with Another Marvelous Thing, I just finished Shine on, Bright and Dangerous Object (what a fucking title), and am currently reading Happy All the Time. I particularly enjoyed the first two and remain unsure of the third. Time will tell. Colwin’s work mainly concerns itself with upper-middle-class people in the 1970s and 80s living in metropolitan American cities (usually New York) having affairs, making babies, getting divorced, and wrapping thick wollen scarves around themselves before taking autumnal walks. All of her characters seem to own fireplaces and drink brandy. She reminds me of Nora Ephron, in a Harry-met-Sally-way. Like that brief time in the late ‘90s when American pop culture seemed weirdly safe & wholesome. Colwin’s prose is simple but elegant, like the literary equivalent of having a loaf of good banana bread on your kitchen counter. Ready to be sliced whenever you feel a hankering - for elevenses, as breakfast dessert, or toasted and schmeared with cold butter and served with milky, black tea as an afternoon snack.

I wrote this sentence before I actually made the banana bread. I was emailing a friend about what I was reading, which turned into the kickoff I needed to a) start writing this newsletter and b) make the miso & chocolate banana bread that I’d been craving since June 2024. Sometimes things fall into place. It might take a while, but they do. Is it too on the nose that I had good, raw (!) miso which I’d brought back from Japan and used in this recipe? Probably. But I’m not going to fight a good thing (actually that’s far from the truth, I’m kicking & screaming but that’s between my therapist and me). I followed Alexis Dunlap’s recipe to a T, no point in repeating it here. I used an additional 25g of miso, this salt fiend can’t help herself, and reduced the amount of chocolate to 85g of 85% dark because I didn’t want the chocolate flavor to be too pronounced. I also left the shards pretty large because I liked the idea of them hardening into chocolate chunks rather than melting into the banana bread.

More Bites — the lit edition

Let me finish this by recommending two incredible newsletters I read over the past week. First off, Stephanie Danler on her father’s death and the recent separation from her partner. The way she writes while in the moment of grief is awe-inspiring. Eloquent and to the point, simply beautifully written. The second is Catherine Shannon on why our phones make us feel unsexy. Inherently, I think we know all these things already but she really got me with this line “Something is deeply wrong when we sext the same way we order a sandwich.” Damn, dude. Alright! Shannon makes me want to throw my iPhone out the window and own a flip phone again. 2025 might be that moment.

Happy holidays, are they over yet? 🥺 I’m sorry to anyone who’s spent time with me in person over the last month, I am famously a Grinch and you best believe that I am happy & relieved this season is so close to being over. However! Even though I harbor a dislike for the end-of-year holiday season, I do love holiday foods and I’ve found the perfect little solution to brighten the mood: deviled eggs.

My dudes. This is the answer to the annual “What do I bring to a holiday potluck?” Q. It’s deviled eggs. Specifically, carbonara deviled eggs (as long as you’re not vegetarian - sozzles to the veggies). Deviled eggs are funny, because when are you happy to eat four whole eggs in one go alongside your dinner? Not often I’d bet. But once the yolks are deviled, the gloves are off.

I attended my friends’ potluck holiday party last week and wow did I not need to think twice about what to bring. I’d made deviled eggs last New Year’s Eve, but those were a classic version and this year I honed in on carbonara deviled eggs. I first saw the recipe on one of my favorite Instagram accounts: Elizabeth Minchilli lives in Rome and films much of her daily life there. Earlier this year she showed her local market vendor Pippo preparing carbonara deviled eggs. I made them both for Easter and Christmas and I promise you, bring deviled eggs to any event and there won’t be any leftovers (if you do have any, they work perfectly smashed into an egg salad on toast the following day). They’re such a good, filling snack: salty, fatty, two bites max. Plus, deviled eggs make a great base for when you’re drinking. Little bit of fat little bit of protein. What more could you want.

If there’s one hill I’ll die on, it’s that eggs are a perfect food. Nutritional little powerhouses filled with good fats and vitamins. I eat eggs every day but everyone requires a little zhuzh during the holiday season (as much as I am a Grinch, I love to throw on lipstick and zhuzh) and deviled eggs are basically fancy, dressed-up boiled eggs. Added bonus for the mayonnaise haters, we got you. This recipe replaces mayonnaise with rendered guanciale fat, a genius move. Pop one into your mouth and they’re perfect for alcohol-heavy holiday hangs.

Carbonara Deviled Eggs

16 eggs

about 250g guanciale

80g pecorino (microplaned into a soft heap)

1 teaspoon smooth Dijon mustard

salt & pepper

This whole recipe is a bit of a guessing game, you’ll need to adjust seasoning as you see fit. The amount of fat rendered from the guanciale will also vary. Eyeball it and if you find you have too little to make a smooth filling, feel free to add another binding agent (either some neutral oil, or even a spoonful of Greek yoghurt - blasphemy. I know.)

Boil the eggs until they’re hard, I like to do this for about 10 minutes so they don’t get chalky but the exact length will depend on your stove, the size of your eggs, and if they’re coming from the fridge. I suggest sacrificing one egg to the Gods and checking at the 10-minute mark to see if they’re hard-boiled to your liking. I like mine barely set with nary a gray/green chalky yolk. Shock them in cold water until they’re cool to handle, this helps the eggs peel easier.

Pop your guanciale into the freezer for 10 minutes to help the knife cut through the fat without smearing. Afterward, slice into long batons. Render these in a pan very slowly. I did the whole 25 minutes as mentioned in the video, then added an extra 5 minutes. Low and slow is the name of the game. Once crispy, remove the guanciale with a slotted spoon and place atop kitchen roll that’s been laid out on a plate.

While you’re rendering the guanciale fat peel your eggs. Then slice them in half lengthwise and put the yolks into a vessel that will fit the head of your immersion blender. Add the rendered guanciale fat, pecorino, salt & pepper, and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. I find this helps the emulsion and I like the added hit of acidity. Blend until smooth.

Chop the crispy guanciale into small bits.

If you’ve got a piping bag, fill the egg/fat mixture into that. Piping the mixture into the egg whites makes it look neater, but isn’t strictly necessary. Otherwise, simply spoon the filling into the waiting egg whites. Optionally, you can stop here and let the egg/fat mixture rest in the fridge overnight (in an airtight container) and bring it along to wherever the eggs need assembly. The egg whites are also easily stored in the fridge in a sealable container.

Garnish with crispy guanciale bits, chives, parsley, and/or sweet paprika.

I’m slipping on my self-determined biweekly deadlines, I realize that. But here we are. It’s winter, it’s cold, and below, you’ll find a recipe for ragù. Plus: I hope and believe that before the end of this year, I’ll have the chickpea recipe ready. Buckle up - let’s go!

One of my strongest food-related memories happened when I was barely 20, living in my first flatshare / WG in East London. Of the three other people I lived with, one was Amy. British but raised in Rome and was the first person I’d met who cared deeply about food and lived her life accordingly. One morning I woke up, probably groggy from a hangover and too many bad double gin & tonics. I walked into the kitchen as she bounded down the stairs having already been to “buy fish at the docks”. To this day, I’m still not sure where at the London docks she got fresh mussels at 7am on a Saturday but alas.

The first year we lived together we went out to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, which takes place on the 5th of November: an annual British celebration that involves bonfires and fireworks and celebrates the fact that in 1605, Guy Fawkes was successfully stopped from blowing up the House of Lords. I wasn’t paying much attention to what Amy was doing before we headed out to Victoria Park to watch the fireworks but when we came back from the cold, she whipped out a huge Le Creuset from the oven, filled with a delightful-smelling bolognese. Turns out, while I wasn’t paying attention, she had prepared it that afternoon and kept the ragù warm in a low oven while we were out getting tipsy and watching stars explode in the sky. All that was left to do was pour table glasses filled to the brim with cheap red wine and boil pasta. Our rather large group sat down to an incredible filling, warming meal. At that time, this feat truly seemed like magic. I hadn’t even thought about what we’d eat after we came back in from the cold and to be served such a delicious meal with (what seemed like) zero effort was such a cool trick to my 20-year-old self.

I have no clue what recipe Amy based her 2008 ragù on, but I’m convinced the low and slow simmer and being kept warm in the oven only improved its taste. I’ve since made ragù countless times and the recipe below is a melange of all the people I’ve taken inspiration from over the years. Namely Rachel Roddy’s Five Quarters, Amy, my friend Davide, Luisa Weiss's My Berlin Kitchen, and Kenj J. Lopez’s recipe on Serious Eats. I tend to make it a little differently every time, I love Kenj’s version but it is very involved in terms of finding extra ingredients and, while incredibly tasty, it doesn’t read as “classic” to me (as evidenced by the shriek my Italian friend Davide let out when reading the ingredients list, abject horror at finding “salsa di alici” (fish sauce) in the “bolognese”). However, I always cook the sauce as long as possible (anywhere between five to seven hours) and make it the day before serving it. That allows the flavors to meld together to form something larger than the sum of its parts.

I include celery because I love the taste and one of my vegetable guys at the farmers market grows his own which is lovely, so crisp, and extra celery-y. I go heavy on the carrots because a slip of a very tender, sweet carrot makes me incredibly happy. I like a bit of smoked speck though, of course, pancetta or unsmoked bacon are more common. At the end of the day, ragù is so personal. I would never dare to call mine classic and I’ll probably never ever serve it to an Italian because I genuinely would be scared. What’s important is to make sure the ground meat is well separated, really putting elbow grease into that part of the process, something I learned from Luisa Weiss. The addition of milk creates a soft and creamy texture and there’s almost a toasted element to the finished dish. I cannot resist a bit of miso, something I’m sure would get me ex-communicated in Italy and I use both olive oil and butter. I include more tomato than a traditional Ragù alla Bolognese calls for but less than what popular culture considers appropriate for “spag bol”.

Liv’s Letter Ragù

makes enough for 8-10 servings

1 yellow onion

3 large carrots

4 celery stalks

75g pancetta, unsmoked bacon, or speck

75g butter

4 tablespoons olive oil

600g minced beef

450g minced pork

2 bay leaves

300ml white or red wine

1.5 tablespoons tomato paste

1.5 tablespoons miso paste

400g canned san marzano tomatoes, whole

225ml whole milk

500g pasta (I prefer rigatoni, mezze rigatoni, or linguine)

grated parmesan or pecorino

salt & pepper

Cut the onion, carrot, celery, and pancetta into small, even-sized pieces. Place the pancetta into the freezer for 10-15 minutes, that’ll help firm the fat up and slice easier. Using a Dutch oven, melt the butter into olive oil on low heat. Add pancetta and fry for 5 minutes to give the fat a chance to render, then place the chopped vegetables into the Dutch oven, season with salt and pepper, and sauté on low until the onions have become translucent. Between 5-10 minutes.

Turn the heat up to medium and add the meat, using a wooden spoon to break it up into even-sized pieces. Put some elbow grease into it, this step is important for the final texture of the dish. Once the liquid from the meat has boiled off and you can see even browning, add the bay leaf and wine. Turn the heat to medium-high and allow the wine to mostly evaporate.

Stir both tomato and miso paste into the mixture, dispersing it evenly throughout. Using your hand, squish the San Marzano tomatoes into the dish, breaking up the whole tomato. Don’t forget to add its liquid, you can give your can a quick wash with some water and pour that red-tinted liquid into the pan. Add half the milk and season with salt and pepper.

Put a lid on your pot and turn the heat down low, allow to simmer for as long as you’ve got time. About halfway through the cooking process (at 2.5 hours or 3.5 hours or however long you got, minus half) add the rest of the milk and make sure to incorporate well. Continuously check on your sauce, add a splash of water if it looks too dry, keep it on low, and make sure the lid is on during the long cooking process. Taste it in between, you should notice a difference between the beginning, three hours in, five hours in, and seven hours in. Once you’re happy with it, turn off the heat.

To serve: You can, of course, eat this immediately. But I find the flavors notably improve if left to sit in the fridge overnight. Once ready, gently reheat the ragù. Boil pasta according to package instructions, just shy of al dente, and return to its pot on low heat. Save the starchy pasta water. Ladle the amount of sauce you need into the pasta pot and stir together with the pasta. Use splashes of pasta water to thin out the sauce if it’s too thick. Cook over high heat, stirring and tossing, until pasta is cooked to your liking and the sauce is shiny and clings to the noodles, plate and serve with grated parmesan.

More Bites

Fitting to this theme, I recently went to London to see friends, dip in 7°cold lidos, and attend a Friendsgiving. I also got to eat at one of my very favorite places in the world: 40 Maltby Street. Their fritters always deliver. Especially when paired with mushroom ketchup and a skin-contact glass of white. For said Friendsgiving, my pal JK had the idea of making a pickle tree. 10/10 recommend for your holiday celebrations. It’s whimsical, silly, delicious, and, bonus: puts people to work on a project while you’re in the kitchen finishing up the last bits and bobs.

Hiii! This is late and long, what a combination. 

I had initially planned on writing Greece Part ii, which would have been more on Hydra, and a small recap of my two days in Athens. But I went to Athens and had a literal life-changing bowl of chickpeas and after said bowl, I consumed 2 (two!) glasses of ouzo on ice while I typed on my phone for close to 45 minutes, an edited version of which you’ll find below. I thought that any bowl of chickpeas that elicits that reaction from me should get its own time in the spotlight. So, if you do have any Qs on Hydra please ask, I’m more than happy to answer any and all (it’s a tiny island and after three weeks, I’d say I’m intimately acquainted with most of it). 

The whole reason I planned on spending two days in Athens was because my friend Claire told me about these chickpeas, the best of her life. And if Claire, someone who, despite living in Italy, used to hate chickpeas, says these are the best chickpeas of her life? I will make sure I find my way there. Visiting Diporto was basically the main reason I decided to finish my Greece trip in Athens.

I took the ferry from Hydra at 11.30am and arrived at my hotel in Athens around 2pm. I asked Claire if I should still try and go for late lunch at Diporto, assuming the answer was no but it wasn’t — I was told to go twice during my two-day stay. I’m nothing but a rule follower (not true, but let’s pretend for the sake of this story). I’d been anxious about Athens. Spending three weeks on a carless island left me feeling jumpy at the thought of a large, busy metropolis and to be honest, I felt dread fill my stomach as the ferry pulled into the port of Piraeus. But I didn’t have to worry, because Athens is fucking cool. It reminded me of a mixture of Palermo and Mexico City. It’s only human to want to compare a new place with something the brain already knows and can categorize. One of the reasons I was feeling apprehensive about spending time in the Greek capital was because I was heading towards something unknown. But, turns out, the second I walked out of the metro my inner born-and-raised-in-a-city-child brain went “Oh. This is familiar. I got this.”

Diporto is a traditional Greek taverna that’s about 130 years old and has served as a lunch spot for the working class around the Varvakeios market. It’s run by its chef-owner, who speaks little English, and a younger server who easily communicates with the TikTok crowd. Diporto, whose name means “having two doors” — God, I enjoy a literal name, has become popular on social media over the last couple of years. I somehow pride myself on the fact that I heard about it via word-of-mouth, which is silly, I realize.

I’ve been struggling to write this piece because I’ve been hemming and hawing about how to describe a place that’s not out for fame and trying to resist using the word “authentic” because good lord, in this day and age what even is authentic? Solid, honest, good cooking. Served by someone who’s been doing it for so long he writes the bill while simultaneously grilling sardines and finishing chunky cut plates of Greek salad with a hefty glug of olive oil? Check, yes to all of the above.

The truth is that this was an incredible emotional meal. I went back twice and both times, I held back tears while I was eating. Don’t mind me, I’m secretly sensitive. It reminded me of my maternal grandfather, a fisherman and painter from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and for the life of me, I cannot remember the last time I visited a restaurant that I would have loved to eat at with my grandfather, and I know he would have enjoyed the shit out of.

Once I sat down, butcher paper was rolled out on top of the table and I was immediately (and I do mean immediately) served a hunk of bread and the famous bowl of chickpeas, alongside two lemon halves. Anyone who’s ever cooked chickpeas at home knows that it can be incredibly difficult to get them right. Even if they happen not to be 1.000 years old and you stupidly still decide to cook them, they often taste mealy and extremely uninspiring. Even after many hours in the pot. This bowl? The opposite of that: plump, creamy chickpeas bobbing around in a clean, nutty, lemony broth with hints of allium.

These chickpeas were simple but through their simplicity, perfect. The chef has probably been cooking these beans for 90% of his life and it showed. When something is this simple, you want and need it to be really, really good. There’s nothing to hide behind. It reminded me of the tale of fine dining head chefs asking young sous during their interviews to cook them an omelette. The reasoning being that if you can’t make a good omelette, you shouldn’t be let near anything else. I’ve had fancier, more involved meals but there is something so comforting about a bowl of perfectly cooked legumes in a gorgeous broth. I could truly eat at Diporto every single week and be happy.

I maintain that a bowl of brothy beans is the vegetarian version of chicken: as in, once you’ve got it down you can continue using it forever (much in the style of Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal but that’s for another letter). With a beautiful pile of brothy beans, you can eat it as is, throw some greens and parm in there for a heftier broth, make any type of bean spread, use it as the beginning of a soup, toss the beans into a salad, etc etc .. as versatile as any chicken!

I ate the chickpeas like a cowboy, digging into my bowl with elbows splayed wide at the table, hungrily shoveling spoonfuls of broth and beans into my mouth. It felt appropriate in this space, sat next to wine barrels that must have been at least fifty years old. Both times I visited, I’d only had breakfast, saving Diporto as my late lunch / early dinner. Halfway through the chickpeas, I was asked if I wanted fish and I nodded an enthusiastic yes. Several minutes later I was served perfectly grilled sardines, with crisp skin and another whole lemon. Seasoned exactly as I like it, which is to say: heavy on salt, olive oil, and lemon juice. One of the few thousand things I so appreciate here is how generous they are with the lemons served to every patron. The amount of times I’ve had to beg for more slivers of lemon wedges, I felt healed during this meal. 

I ate the fish as my grandfather taught me (and frankly, would yell at me if I got wrong. Even as a seven-year-old), carefully separating each side from the fishbone. Pulling the middle bone off the filet in one clean sweep, making sure to get the small pin bones. Is there anything more satisfying? I tried my best to dig into the meat behind the cheeks but sardines are small and don’t have that much to them.  

To be clear: Diporto is more like stepping into someone’s home kitchen than a restaurant. You enter by going down a steep set of stairs and I’m not sure they would pass a health inspection. The descaled, gutted fish are readied in a plastic bucket and refills for the olive oil dispenser are administered from a grimy, plastic gallon canister. Dinged-up aluminum pots that food has probably been cooked in for half a century grace the stove. It's hard not to romanticize a place like this. I don't want to and yet, I quite obviously am. Simply the act of taking the pictures and by writing about it, I am. But there is something incredibly special about stepping into a time capsule and being warmly welcomed and I want to remember that feeling.

The second time I went back I was treated like a regular. Shown to the same table with a wave of a hand, another guest sat across from me. The chef-owner had taken a liking to me, sending out additional plates of food, even though I hadn’t ordered them. Showing off his boiled greens and later, the lamb rice stew. Waving off my effusive thank you with an annoyed hand but a small smile playing around the corner of his mouth. Without using the a-word, this for me is the true definition of hospitality. A place where you feel safe, you’re well-fed, and you leave feeling content and taken care of. No superficial niceties but everyone is met at eye level.

My mother would have fucking loved Diporto — she was partial to classic blue-collar hole-in-the-wall type places. And she would have loved me sitting here, alone in Athens yet accompanied by the memory of both her and my grandfather. 

At the end of the day, this entire experience made me feel seen. I think that’s why it got to me so hard. By a Greek man who's probably twice my age. In Athens, a city I’d previously only taken a bus through to get to the port. I felt like we shared a strong belief in good, simple food and how to show people care. And all that, without a verbal discourse. Simply actions.

And truly, I could not have had this experience had I not gone to Diporto alone. And that’s what is so special about solo dining, solo traveling. As hard as it sometimes can be. Turns out, this really was a meal that I preferred to have alone, as much as I’ll be dragging everyone I know to Diporto next time I’m in Athens, I feel incredibly grateful to have been able to experience it exactly the way I did.

*a brief addendum: I am working on replicating this recipe and I will share once it’s done! But this letter being long enough already, I wanted to break it up into two pieces and, let’s be honest, give myself some more time to nail the recipe.